Raising Lazarus

On a mission to conserve Madagascar’s rarest birds

- DALE WRIGHT

In the instant that we catch sight of its silhouette, the raptor launches from its perch and drifts effortlessly through the tangled canopy. Moise and Eugene Laodany exchange glances, then look quickly at our group of scientists, realising that we hadn’t quite locked our binoculars onto this elusive bird. Fortunately for us, these two Malagasy field technicians have been working on this particular species for most of their lives. The pursuit continues…

As quietly as humanly possible, we clamber over fallen logs and under tangles of vines. Our Malagasy colleagues seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to our target and very soon they have relocated it. This time luck is on our side. Our binoculars are trained on one of the rarest raptors in the world: the Madagascar Serpent Eagle. Cameras fire offshots in rapid succession. Just as quickly, the young bird lifts off and disappears into the dense montane rainforest. But now we’re satisfied.

How were we able to find and photograph one of the rarest and most secretive raptors in the world? Well, perhaps we cheated just a little. The young bird we followed was a recent fledgling and as part of a Peregrine Fund research project it had been fitted with a radiotelemetry tracking device. Each day the field technicians head out to log the bird’s position as they amass critical information about its distribution, range size and ecology.